One form of folded towel in commercial application is a C-fold towel. Such towels are bundled or stacked and housed in a dispenser. Dispensers of the type for use in dispensing folded towels commonly have a central chamber for containing a stack of towels and an opening or slot in the bottom of the dispenser whereby towels can be pulled one at a time from the dispenser. These towels are stacked in such a manner that the towels are delivered one at a time from the dispenser to the user.
One of the preferred ways for making highly absorbent products has been to manufacture those products using the Kroyer dry forming process. In that process, finely divided wood fibers dispersed in air are layed onto a forming wire by drawing air through the forming wire The formed mat is pressed between calendar rolls, and controlled quantities of moisture and binder are then sprayed onto the dry formed fiber mat. The mat is then heated and dried. The resulting product has a soft texture and is highly absorbent. Because of these qualities, dry formed or air laid products are particularly useful as a towel material. On the other hand, dry formed products have not been commercially employed in making folded towels such as C-fold towels. One of the characteristics of the dry formed product is that it is not folded as readily as paper commonly used in making paper towels, and production of folded towels often requires formation of sharp folds in the towel material. Additionally, the surface of the dry formed product has a high coefficient of friction such that the surfaces of adjacent towels will not slide against one another easily, and the dry formed towels cannot be properly dispensed one at a time from a conventional dispenser for use in dispensing folded towels.
Attention is directed to the following patents describing methods and apparatus for use in making dry formed products: the U.S. Kroyer Pat. No. 3,575,749, issued Apr. 20, 1971; the U.S. Kroyer Pat. No. 4,014,635, issued Mar. 29, 1977; the U.S. Rasmussen et al. Pat. No. 3,769,115, issued Oct. 30, 1973; the U.S. Curry et al. Pat. No. 4,097,640, issued June 27, 1978; the U.S. Curry et al Pat. No. 4,074,959, issued Feb. 21, 1978; and the U.S. Hicklin et al. Pat. No. 4,071,651, issued Jan. 31, 1978.
Attention is also directed to the U.S. Curry et al. Pat. No. 4,011,034, issued Mar. 8, 1977; the U.S. Tapp Pat. No. 4,060,360, issued Nov. 29, 1977; the U.S. Kroyer et al. Pat. No. 3,963,819, issued June 15, 1976; the U.S. Curry et al. Pat. No. 3,905,864, issued Sept. 16, 1975; the U.S. Rasmussen Pat. No. 3,669,778, issued June 13, 1972; the U.S. Rasmussen Pat. No. 3,581,706, issued June 1, 1971; and the U.S. Curry et al. Pat. No. 4,160,004, issued July 3, 1979.
Attention is further directed to the U.S. Kroyer Pat. No. 4,033,709, issued July 5, 1977; the U.S. White et al. Pat. No. 4,144,619, issued Mar. 20, 1979; the U.S. Kroyer Pat. No. 4,202,851, issued May 13, 1980; the U.S. Kroyer et al. Pat. No. 4,494,278, issued Jan. 22, 1985; the U.S. Attwood et al. Pat. No. 3,976,412, issued Aug. 24, 1976; the U.S. Attwood et al. Pat. No. 4,046,622, issued Sept. 6, 1977; the U.S. Hicklin et al. Pat. No. 4,074,393, issued Feb. 21, 1978; and the U.S. Curry et al. Pat. No. 3,954,554, issued May 4, 1976.